Jultember still officially sucks...

Jultember has come to an end, and boy am i happy to see it go. 

with a couple days left to go in the month, i was bitten on the ankle (at like two in the morning) by a "false widow" spider. it looked like someone stuffed a golf ball under my skin, and i spent the better part of an hour contemplating if the electric hand saw was strong enough to remove my foot from the rest of my body. boy, was i in serious pain! stupid imposter spider!

then, with mere hours left to go, my (former) favorite cat...

sent my second favorite coffee mug crashing to the floor...

that photo of her has been the background of my laptop for ages. she is seriously adorable... but i am still not happy with her right now. so, while i know that there is actually important negative stuff happening in the world, in my absurd, pointless little corner... Jultember still officially sucks!

other than the occasional burst of animal-induced absurdity, life continues to be pretty calm in these parts. i had all of these grand plans of things i intended to do once Summer started. now, we are the end of Jultember—and with it, the end of the Summer—and i still cannot figure out where any of that time went. 

i had a birthday at some point during the Summer, which we celebrated in our usual super-low-key fashion. mostly, it was an excuse to eat something special. this time around, it featured an almost one-and-a-half kilogram (roughly three 'murican pounds) tomahawk steak. you can keep your soft-as-butter fillet. i am all about the rib eye, and this beast is rib eye squared. 

we cooked it sous vide at 49°C/120°F (very rare), then crusted it up on a super-hot grill, by which time it was perfectly medium rare. it may not look like it, but trust me when i say this was a lot of meat for two people to eat. that is a huge serving platter in the first photo, not a plate. the animator was adding bits of the leftovers to bowls of ramen for days. 

and, speaking of the grill... i had to downsize this year's balcony garden project as he decided that we were in desperate need of a bigger barbecue. luckily, i could not muster the enthusiasm to buy many plants this year, so we ended up with a few herbs and some flowers to appease the bees. [we are hanging on to the propane tank from the old grill to appease his man genes' refusal to get rid of things.]  

oh... and we added some new flooring to the balcony... which is barely visible under the tangle of leaves. i seriously love having my own mini jungle out here.  

my culinary mojo is still feeling very meh, but i do occasionally get the urge for something interesting... like the Thai curry mussels that took all of about seven minutes to make. this dish featured the "Thai holy trinity" (galangal, kaffir lime, and lemongrass) combined with curry and coconut milk. there are no words to describe the joy i got from eating this meal.

it has also been a bit of a struggle to keep the crafting mojo going, but i did manage to finish a few things (some of which i will discuss in more detail at a later date, as they require their own posts). and, yes... i will be keeping this mug many miles away from a certain ridiculous cat. 

i (finally) finished up that green sweater from the last post... and the post before that. the pattern is Langeline by Ditte Lerche. it is a free pattern (in English, German, and Danish) on Ravelry and on the Filcolana website. i liked the look of the eyelet section at the top, so i kept it going for the whole thing. this was knit from the top-down, making it perfect for when you have a limited amount of yarn (or if you want to knit until it is all used up to avoid leftovers). 

i usually avoid knitting things the same color as the pattern sample, but i am (still) trying to add some life to my greyscale wardrobe, so i dyed some yarn in the brightest green i could produce. i also spun that yarn... sorta... but we can talk about that some other time. 

as per usual, a few changes were made along the way. most notably, i made the neckline slightly larger (it is wider than it looks in the photo, trust me)...

shortened the sleeves... 

and i used the eyelets allover because it was more interesting to knit than a plain stockinette fabric. did i mention that it is a superfine merino and cashmere blend that is soft and snuggly enough for an allergic-to-all-the-things cupcake like me to wear? yum!

all that green must have gotten to me, because i pulled some more fiber out of my stash, and dyed that green too. i will probably talk more about this yarn when i get i around to using it... eventually.

and for a change, i dyed up some yarns in three very similar shades of turquoise-blue. if you look closely, you will note the different construction of the three yarns, two of which were sorta-spun by me. i have a garment's worth of each one, so that is three more future projects to get around to... eventually. 

the absolute best part of the summer, however, had to be the addition of a new toy to my crafting library. i officially own a knitting machine.

but, wait... it gets worse. 

i actually now own THREE knitting machines. no joking. the animator really knows how to deliver on a birthday gift. they will likely be the subject of my next post... eventually.  

so, now i have even more ways to keep myself occupied in the middle of the night. seriously... would you rather be laying in bed at two in the morning, waiting to be stung by a stupid spider seeking vengeance for his comrade that you slaughtered the night before, or sat on an uncomfortable chair staring at something like this? 

exactly!

since eleven half-posts ago....

if you are wondering just how many times during the past few months i started to compose a post, only to abandon it halfway through the process, the answer to that question is eleven. hopefully this one will not end up being not-quite-lucky number twelve. i may eventually get around to finishing one (or more) of those drafts, but for now they will continue to exist as what my people in the knitting world refer to as WIPs, because what i clearly need right now is even more works-in-progress to ignore. speaking of which...

it was my intention to have that stupid-bright-green sweater from last time completed when i got around to composing my next post, but i have barely touched that thing since eleven half-posts ago. my interest/attention was drawn elsewhere, and i decided to go with that flow. my crafting energy has been (mostly) focused on spinning and dyeing yarn, because the thirty storage cubes full of yarn i already have is clearly not enough to get me through the apocalypse. makes perfect sense, no?

we have also been eating lots of super-yummy food, which is always a wonderful and scary thing. i lost my zeal for cooking earlier in the year, so this has been something of a reunion with a long-lost friend. 

i had lunch today followed by a mid-afternoon scoop of rum & raisin ice cream... which i made completely from scratch! feel free to applaud. i totally deserve it. 

i should point out that rum is a major commodity in the economy of most of the Caribbean, and wherever the diaspora may take us, we always regard our rum as a near-sacred ingredient... which is my attempt at justifying what may be the booziest rum & raisin ice cream in recorded history. 

no exaggeration, i soaked the raisins in rum for about three days before getting started, then i tossed in an extra glug—for good measure—before adding the raisins to the contents of the ice cream maker.

the chief danger with using a large amount of alcohol in ice cream is that it lowers the freezing point (meaning that it requires more coldness for the ice cream to become solid). use too much booze, and you can easily end up with a mixture that insists on acting like a milk shake. 

my rum & raisin ice cream, however, is well-behaved. it has a lovely, silky texture that borders on sheer perfection. if you squint a bit you can see tiny specks of ground cinnamon in the mix. so ridiculously tasty!

the animator was less excited about the end product. as i have probably noted (countless times) in the past, he is not a fan of the taste of most forms of alcohol, and this stuff is definitely not shy about its alcohol content. he enjoys boozy eggnog between December and January, then he spends the rest of the year making faces if i offer him anything that contains a noticeable amount of alcohol... like when i asked him to taste the ice cream for a second time.  

me: you want to try it again?
him: i don't know. it was pretty strong the first time. 
me: it's been sitting in the freezer for a couple days now, so the rum has had a chance to equalize and mellow a bit. those pockets of raisins should taste less intensely boozy than when you tried it right out of the ice cream maker.

so he took another taste... and he made a face that i know all too well. 

him: it tastes very good, but it's still way too strong for me. use a lot less rum next time, then i can have some.

then i just looked at him with as much pity as i could muster on such short notice. 

me: you poor thing!

i should note that this sudden urge to make ice cream came about after i went digging around in the fridge one day, looking for some random thing at the back of a shelf, when i discovered that we had three cartons of eggs... in a household of two people who only occasionally eat eggs. so, i did the breakfast-for-dinner thing a couple-few times before deciding that i never want to see another egg (i was too lazy to get myself a larger plate from the cupboard). 

i used up the last of my precious reserved duck fat in what has to be my tastiest attempt to date at making a French classic, cassoulet... which is just a posh-sounding term for a stew of white beans and whatever bits of meat you happen to have hanging around. 

purists would probably insist that a proper cassoulet absolutely must contain duck confit. i keep promising myself to make a truly authentic cassoulet one of these days. however, i was not about to venture out mid-pandemic in search of a duck (which you can also find already-confited in most supermarkets around here), so i had to make do with the last of the fat from a duck we roasted a few months before. if you have never eaten food cooked in duck fat, you have not lived. and, yes... i have officially been living among the French for way too long. 

in addition to the duck fat, this cassoulet also contained a few sausages, whole cherry tomatoes, chunks of butternut squash, and speck (which is a prosciutto-like smoked pork belly that shows up a lot in the Croatian food the animator has introduced me to). the combination of the starch from the beans and the gelatin from the speck gives a rich, velvety texture to the sauce in this stew. this was a seriously enjoyable meal. 

there was also a bit of culinary disaster involving a dish of chicken and potatoes in what was supposed to be a rich, herby cream sauce. it tasted great, but the texture of the sauce was all wrong. 

this is a dish that he usually makes, but i decided to give it a try this time around. turns out, he forgot to tell me one critical step, which he remembered after i had just finished screwing it up... for the second time... that week.

him: i can go to the store and get more stuff if you want to make it again soon. you know what went wrong, so it'll be perfect next time. 
me: i already stopped caring, because i am never making this dish ever again. 

i used a couple eggs from our surplus in the production of this wonderous thing. 

the was the latest variation of my go-to upside-down cake. the fruit changes with the season, and the sponge cake is very forgiving, making for an ideal template for improvisation. 

this cake is especially easy if you use an ovenproof skillet. it begins with brown sugar melted with butter, this will become the sticky topping on the cake.

i had some bananas hanging around, so i decided to use that as the fruit.  

next came the batter, which i put together in a separate bowl while waiting for the sugar to melt. i use about half of the sugar that was called for in the original recipe, as there is plenty of sweetness in the gooey fruit topping. i included a bit of freshly grated ginger and lemon zest in the batter this time around, and i poured it right over the banana pieces. 

then into the oven it went...

i used a darker brown sugar this time around (because that is what i had, because... pandemic) , and i was nervous that it might be burnt on account of how dark the caramelized sugar was around the edges. [random aside: that bit of red is an oven mitt slipped over the handle of the super-hot skillet while it sat for a bit after coming out of the oven, because i do not want to lose the skin from the middle of my palm by accidentally grabbing a hot pan handle... again. true story.]

ten minutes later, and it was time to flip if out of the pan. tada!

it may look a bit overdone, but it was perfect. 

the fruit keeps the sponge layer moist, and the ginger and lemon zest is a delicious counterpoint to the caramelized banana. and, it happens to be totally wheat-free, so i can eat as much as i want without resorting to a week of taking antihistamines. best of all, that is two less eggs cluttering up my refrigerator. 

the cosmic algorithm has shifted...

i am multiple days deep into what is turning out to be one of the greatest sub-migraines in recorded history. for now, i am trying (but mostly failing) to avoid anything that might cause me the slightest measure of additional stress... which is not as easy as it sounds. 

me: i want to bring my computer out here [pointing at my favorite sofa], but the light [pointing at the wall of windows] is doing that thing where it feels like i am being stabbed in the back of my eyeballs. 
him: just close the drapes.
me: that almost makes sense.

so, i did. then i started wondering aloud about the parts i need to replace the brake system on my loom, which resulted in us walking across the hall to the studio to give it a closer look. a few minutes later, we were back in the living room.

him: why are the drapes closed?
me: i just closed them a few minutes ago.
him: oh... are you coming to sit out here?
me: do you listen to anything i say?
him: open one side so the plants can get some light.
me: if i do that, the light will start doing that eyeball stabby thing again.
him: open it a little bit on the end by the plants.
me: what is more important to you right now... my sanity or the damn plants?
him: just open it.

then i gave him that look that said he better sleep with one eye open. speaking of which...

i know the cosmic algorithm has shifted so that it is no longer socially acceptable to complain about...well... anything. however, it should be noted that i have been feeling a bit overwhelmed of late. i have not slept through a whole night in days for starters, which would probably explain the ever-present sub-migraine. no exaggeration, i found myself sitting in the bathroom in the dark at like four o'clock one morning, surrounded by the three cats. i was trying to figure out where i went wrong in life, while they were mostly concerned that i would not be able to see my way to feed them with all the lights turned off. 

yes. i am surrounded by so much love. 

sleep deprivation aside, it continues to be (mostly) uneventful around these parts. we had a touch of rough weather earlier in the week, which resulted in all the things you can usually expect when you mix high winds with the bitter cold. one of the animator's colleagues lost power when a transformer—the electrical kind, not a robot in disguise—in front her building exploded, melting part of a car that was parked nearby. you know... usual wintery hijinks. 

we were prepared for the power to go out at some point, a not uncommon occurrence in bad weather. so, when it did a day later, we just took it in stride. 

me: what the...?
him: there it goes. power's out.

this sort of thing would probably have been met with a bit of grumbling back in the olden times, but one finds very little to complain about since the shift. so, we threw a couple blankets on the sofa and pulled out the Codenames Duet. that stuff in my jar is just a berry tea bag in water. and, yes, i am using a face mask as a snack container. we are living in crazy times!

we have been stuck at Washington DC for weeks now, which—some may say—is a metaphor for life. 

we have a system for keeping track of who did what in the game. the upside down cards are my clues that he guessed correctly, and vice versa. 

i used some of that time to check out my latest random purchase from a local business that was started by two dads with a beautiful message. 

i was not a fan of Barbie per se when i was growing up, and the dolls were only ever used as models for the tiny clothes i would make when i was learning to sew. i get the feeling that little eight-year old me would have loved this doll. looking at that hair alone makes my whole life make sense. i will definitely have to return to the world of tiny fashion in the near future. 

i also did a bit of knitting during our game. this is the start of a sleeve. 

it is part of one of the two projects i have been working on (for far too long, as i have zero enthusiasm to get them done). for him, there is the iconic cardigan that he has been wanting for years now. this is the bottom section. i have to do some math and redraw a few charts before i can continue working up to the top. good times. 

for me, there is a sweater that is being worked from the top down in a mighty bright green yarn. said yarn was the result of an important life lesson... which i will talk about some other day. 

i tend to blame coming of age when Grunge was at its peak for my decidedly melancholy approach to fashion. still, i am grudgingly coming to terms with the fact that i look fabulous in bright colors. well-played, Mother Nature. 

oh, and i am using a stitch marker on this project that was one of many i made from my frighteningly-large collection of beading supplies... which is yet another thing i need to get back to one of these days. 

'twould seem that i need fewer hobbies... or a few more lifetimes. 

silly and fun and altogether delicious...

if i were to assess (say, on a scale of one-to-ten) how much of an emotional wreck i have been of late, it would probably average out somewhere near seventeen. life is like that these days. however, there was one wholly-absurd and thoroughly-enjoyable bright spot we got to share. 

a certain animator had a birthday recently, and we used that event as an excuse to indulge in a multi-day festival of foods delivered from some restaurants in the area. we are selflessly doing our part to keep the local economy alive. that's my story, and i'm sticking to it!

some were places that were already known to us, but we discovered a few new gems along the way... like Wienstein & Gavino's (he loved their lasagna), and the indescribable desserts from Bon Et Petit (they are so awesome, they don't need no stinkin' website!). 

then there was that other dish. this one requires a bit of explaining. 

if you have never heard of a thing called poutine, be glad. the dish—and i use that term very loosely—consists of fries topped with gravy and something the locals refer to as cheese curds. oh, and i should probably mention that the curds are supposed to squeak when you chew them, earning them the nickname of squeaky cheese. 

but wait... it gets worse!

the curds lose that disturbing auditory quality when refrigerated, so cheese curds are usually kept at room temperature. the absolute worst part is that they sell them everywhere! no exaggeration, you can find plastic bags of fresh cheese curds on the cashier counter of almost every gas station... right next to the breath mints and the cigarette lighters. that is how much they love their poutine in Quebec, and that is probably the main reason why i have been avoiding the stuff since my very first visit to Montreal (some eighteen-ish years ago, if you need all the details). 

what does any of this have to do with his birthday, you ask? patience. i was just getting to that bit.

birthdays around here are often used to guilt the other person into doing stuff to which they might otherwise object. some call this "love". i had absolutely refused to eat the rabbit he cooked for New Year's (a story for some other day), which meant that i already owed him one.  

so, there we were, with his birthday happening at the end of something called La Poutine Week, where restaurants all over Quebec (and beyond) come up with outrageous combos of poutine toppers to reflect their cuisine. the animator kept reading me the descriptions of some of the local offerings in the misguided hope that he would tempt me to give it a try, so i knew that it was only a matter of time.

him: ooh... there's butter chicken poutine. you love butter chicken.
me: i do. it's one of my favorite foods. i just don't want it on soggy chips with gas station cheese.
him: or, what about this one? lobster poutine! you love lobster.
me: exactly. i love lobster far too much to do it the disservice of ending up atop poutine. 

now, i should point out that he had never even tasted poutine—despite living in Canada his whole life—which made his attempt at a guilt-trip all the more ridiculous. 

me: i am not stopping you from eating poutine. get it. eat whatever you want. 

him: i know, but i want to share this experience with you.
me: why do i have to be tortured so you can satisfy your curiosity?

him: that's how the love works. 

me: good luck with that. 

then he made some comment about me being no fun, which i reminded him was part of my charm. still, it was his special day multi-day celebration, so i gave in. and, after going through the whole list of local offerings, we narrowed it down to the Baby Back Black Velvet Poutine from McCarold, a new-to-us pub a short drive from our place...

or the Philly Cheesesteak Poutine from an old favorite, Notre Boeuf de Grâce.  

[random aside: the restaurant's name is a play on Notre Dame de Grâce (NDG), our neighborhood here in Montreal. i had mixed feeling when they first opened (about a block away from our old place) in the location previously occupied by D.A.D.'s Bagel, a business that was much-loved by the locals. D.A.D.'s was open around the clock, and we would often pop in there during one of our late night walks. i liked going there in wee hours when they were making the mountains of bagels that would be sold at cafes and other such places around town. it was mesmerizing to watch them being moved in and out of the large wood-burning oven. i vowed to hate whatever business took its place... which lasted all of a few months.] 

where was i, again? oh, yes... poutine. 

so, after way more debate than most sane people would find necessary, we settled on the Black Velvet Poutine. it showed up looking just as i expected, like so many servings of poutine i had seen being consumed by other human beings: soggy fries and scattered lumps of gas station cheese. this was not going to end well. 

i took one look, and made the face that he knew from experience meant he would probably be eating it all alone. still, it was his birthday, and i had promised to give it a try, so i stabbed my fork into a chip, and gave it a taste. 

it was a-maz-ing!

i went in for a second bite in silence, stabbing a chunk of the meat this time. this was the point when i started regretting that we had not gotten two orders, because i was definitely not feeling inclined to share. we paused briefly to exchange our mutual (wholly-unexpected) enjoyment of the combination of saucy meat and fries, and we instantly made plans to check out some of the pub's regular offerings in the future. 

but there was still that other thing. 

me: i'm kinda afraid to try the cheese curds.
him: yeh. me too.
me: i'll be freaked out if i bite into something and it squeaks

him: but it would be false advertising if it doesn't squeak. 
me: i know. that's why i'm scared. 

him: me too. let's try it at the same time.

so we did. and it does. and we both laughed because it was silly and fun and altogether delicious. so now we are looking forward to Poutine Week 2022. meanwhile, i have to find something even more absurd delectable for us to try when my birthday rolls around. 

a literal taste of Canada...

i am sat cross-legged on my favorite sofa, enjoying the (unofficial) Canadian national dish of a double-double and a maple-glazed donut from Timmy's. 

i have just had a most-Canadian morning. naturally, it began with lots of snow. 

this is the current view from my favorite sofa, and if i lean out the door, you can see that the balcony is almost entirely filled with snow. that the glass is not completely frosted over and i can get said door open means that it is—thankfully—not overly cold for a change. still, you gotta admit... that is a whole lot of snow! 

let me give you an idea of what life is like in Montreal in Winter. street cleaning rules are suspended, except when it snows... and boy does it snow! they go around one neighborhood at a time, putting up little orange signs that are understood to mean that you do NOT park here... not unless you want to spend the following morning wandering around, trying to find the random spot to which your car had been moved. and, as a bonus, there will be a ticket on your windshield for the charge of the totally unsolicited tow. thank you, Montreal. 

there is actually an app to locate your car, and it is usually moved to an adjacent block that was already plowed. plus, there is one major positive to this wacky system. it tends to leave your car free of snow. if you have ever lived in a place where the temperature can easily drop to minus thirty-something (or lower), you will appreciate being saved a trip outdoors. everyone has had that moment where they looked out the window, shrugged, and decided that it was far easier to pay the ticket than to brave the cold to go dig out from under a mountain of snow... she says from personal experience. 

we usually try to park on the side of the street that gets plowed first, then we run out in the middle of the night and move the car to the freshly-cleared side of the road. that was in the olden days. now, there is a curfew in effect from eight PM to five AM every day on account of... well, you know... and the fine for breaking it can run anywhere from several hundred to a few thousand dollars. 

him: i can run out real quick and move so we don't have to worry about doing it tomorrow. 

me: it's not worth it. plus, the last thing we need is for all the neighbors to be staring out their windows, watching you get ticketed for something so stupid. we'd have to move. 

so, we bundled up this morning, and went out to move a mountain of snow. that is when the Canadian-ness began. 

i was in the car at one point, doing that thing when you go back and forth, trying to get out of bank of snow, when i noticed that he had stopped shoveling. he was leaning on the shovel, engaged in friendly banter with a neighbor from across the street. she disappeared into her house and returned a minute later with a shovel, then she began to help clear a path out of the mountain. then another minute or two later, her husband came walking out of the house with a shovel, and he also proceeded to help clear the snow. 

no exaggeration, at one point another neighbor came walking down the street, and we had to assure him that we did not require even more help. the cynical New Yorker in me was, naturally, disturbed by this display, which i expressed to the animator... once the helpful neighbors were gone, that is. 

me: this is why no one takes your country seriously. you're all too polite to ever be viewed as a threat. 

we switched roles, and i ended up chatting (from a safe distance, as my mask was hanging off my ear at this point) with the neighbor lady while her husband shoveled and the animator dealt with the car. turns out that she is also a New Yorker, so we proceeded to make fun of the frustration of dealing with hyper-polite Canadian drivers. 

neighbor lady: he's not allowed to drive when we're in New York. people would be honking their horn at him all the time.
me: same here. he does all the driving Upstate, and i take over when we get past Westchester. otherwise, he'd probably get us both beaten up or shot because he insists on coming to a stop when the light is still yellow. 

neighbor lady: i tell him he needs to be more of an asshole when he drives, but he doesn't listen. 

me: i say the same thing.

then we both laughed for a bit, content in our smug New York assholery. this is when i got a literal taste of Canada. 

you know that thing that happens when you hit the gas, and the tires just spin, sending a massive spray of dirty ice and snow into the air? well, i happened to be standing in the worst possible spot at that moment. when you get a mouthful, Canada tastes terrible. 

him: was it clean snow?
me: no. it was dirty brown stuff.
him: could be worse. it could have been dirty yellow stuff.  

then he had a good laugh while i stood there spitting repeatedly and wiping my face and tongue on my sleeve. 'twould seem that Karma is a canuck. 

the car was eventually clear, so we thanked the neighbors for their help, and we went for a long meandering drive to recharge the battery that had gone flat from neglect as we seldom go anywhere on account of... well, you know. 

we topped off our mini adventure with a trip through the Tim Hortons drive-thru, where i got the most Canadian flavor combo of all: a double-double and a maple donut. then we headed home. 

it is nice having neighbors who are not assholes. with any luck, Canada will one day be able to say the same.